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Letter from the HFTP Global President: At the End of the Year, We Reflect on the Best of the Year

Members Only: 2018 HFTP Compensation and Benefits Report

By Tanya Venegas, MBA, MHM, CHIA. Results to the biannual survey conducted by Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP). Information includes data on compensation and benefits trends for finance and technology professionals in the club and lodging industries.

IT Spending in the Lodging Industry Three-year Analysis: 2015–2017

By Agnes DeFranco, Ed.D., CHAE; Arlene Ramirez, CHE, CHAE; and Tanya Venegas, MBA, MHM, CHIA. PART II: An analysis of IT spending data in the lodging industry based on reporting in the new USALI Schedule 6 — Information and Telecommunications Systems.

Bots talking to bots? Now that is a future worth talking about. At the recent Digital Travel Summit in Las Vegas, the word of the hour was "chat bot." For most of us, these are an annoying inconvenience, as we know, despite friendly jargon and seemingly responsive wording, the only thing human behind the name is the programmer that created it.

American Airlines, American Express Global Business Travel, Carlson Wagonlit Travel and Flight Centre Travel Group will be launch partners in Sabre's Beyond NDC program.
The travel management companies said partnering with GDSs will be key in advancing NDC solutions.

Corporate travel platform Concur, owned by SAP, has integrated listings from home-sharing service Airbnb into its platform.
A recent announcement from Concur said Concur Travel will now show listings available from Airbnb directly within its platform, making it the only corporate travel solution to do so, the company said. Airbnb listings will now appear alongside traditional hotels within the online travel booking solution operated by SAP Concur.

Wego’s CTO discusses travel trends and letting an AI book your next holiday.
For Tien Nguyen, Chief Technology Officer at Wego, travel is something of a second nature. In the last eight years, the company has risen to become the number one travel metasearch in the Middle East, and Nguyen’s own journey since starting as a Senior Software Engineer in 2010 is one that he enjoys reflecting upon.

The company says that almost 700,000 companies have signed up for and booked with Airbnb for Work.
Business travelers have become an increasingly important part of the Airbnb business, according to a new blog post. The company says that Airbnb for Work, which launched in 2014, has seen bookings triple from 2015 to 2016, and triple again from 2016 to 2017. One interesting trend that Airbnb has noticed is that nearly 60 percent of Airbnb for Work trips had more than one guest.

After the ban of price parity clauses in Belgium last Friday, the Swedish Patent and Market Court issued its judgement forbidding Booking.com to impose parity clauses in its contracts with hotels from 20 October 2018 onwards.

Airbnb's reputation system is only as good as its reviews, and five Airbnb users who spoke to Quartz allege that Airbnb tampered with theirs.
These Airbnb guests say the negative reviews they submitted to the company after a bad experience were either edited or quietly removed from the site without their knowledge or permission.

Thomas Cook’s new city break and hotel-only booking platform in partnership with Expedia has gone live.
The online travel giant is now the preferred provider of hotels for Cook’s city and domestic holiday business.

Google is super active in testing user interfaces around local and hotel results these days.
Google is back at it with yet another design for the hotel search results. Instead of just listing hotel cards straight down, Google is showing two side by side, with a total of four cards and a link to show more.

Here is what you need to know about the Instagram’s new “YouTube”.
Quoting Mark Zuckerberg, IGTV is “a new app designed for watching and creating video on your phone. The experience is native to mobile, with full-screen vertical videos, and the videos can be longer, not just short clips. It’s built on Instagram, so you’re already connected with your friends and favourite Instagram stars from the start.”

Expedia's shares rallied 9% Friday, after the online travel operator crushed earnings estimates for the second quarter and won some hard-earned praise from analysts.
Expedia posted net income of $1 million, compared with $57 million in the year-ago period. Revenue rose 11% to $2.88 billion, from $2.58 billion a year ago, and room nights grew 12% and total gross bookings were up 13%.

Hyatt Hotels Corporation has confirmed that it is considering a bid to take over Spain’s NH Hotel Group.
The news comes after Thai hospitality firm Minor International – which operates the Minor Hotel Group – purchased a 25.2 per cent stake in NH from Chinese giant HNA Group spread over two transactions.

According to recent research, travel is the second poorest performing sector for mobile user experience.
According to iProspect estimates, the travel industry is missing out on £900 million a year in potential revenue due to this poor mobile performance.

Fuel Travel, Flip.to, and StayNTouch joined forces to conduct an extensive study of hundreds of hoteliers and suppliers with a goal to learn where the industry can improve from a technology perspective.

Hotel price comparison site Trivago saw a 21% decline in second-quarter revenues as it cut back on advertising to focus on profitability.
The Expedia-owned metasearch site reported a net loss of $20.7 million for the quarter compared to a loss of $3.4 million in the same period last year. Half-year figures show a cumulative net loss to June 30 of €42.5 million, compared to net income of €4.3 million for the same period in 2017.

Skyscanner reported that flight metasearch continued to be its largest revenue channel last year. However, turnover from hotel, car hire and advertising products contributed 20% of revenue - up from 17% in 2016.
The company was set up to let users compare prices from different travel sites when searching for flights, hotels and rental cars.

Hilton has launched a web platform offering guests of its luxury brands Waldorf Astoria Hotels &amp; Resorts and Conrad Hotel &amp; Resorts a range of new and exclusive experiences.
The website filters by the senses to give guests access to local tastes, sights and sounds.